Issues of concern to people who live in the west: property rights, water rights, endangered species, livestock grazing, energy production, wilderness and western agriculture. Plus a few items on western history, western literature and the sport of rodeo... Frank DuBois served as the NM Secretary of Agriculture from 1988 to 2003. DuBois is a former legislative assistant to a U.S. Senator, a Deputy Assistant Secretary of Interior, and is the founder of the DuBois Rodeo Scholarship.

Monday, August 29, 2016

Rebel cowboys: how the Bundy family sparked a new battle for the American west

Ryan
Bundy first began starving himself in the third grade. Raised by devout
Mormons and lifelong cowboys on a remote desert ranch in Nevada, Ryan had a reputation as a stubborn child, but his hunger strike was unlike anything his family had seen before. It started one lunch period at Virgin Valley elementary school inMesquite,
a tiny rural public school with just a few dozen students in each
class. Ryan sat outside alone until the lunch ladies came to the
playground and tried to persuade him to eat. He refused. But Ryan’s protest wasn’t about food. It was a political statement. It was around the early 1980s and Jane Bundy had signed up her five
children for subsidized school meals – the ranching family had lost
money on a group of cattle and cash was tight. But her husband Cliven
was livid. As a southern Nevada rancher who had developed a deep
mistrust of the government and great disdain for public assistance
programs, Cliven had taught his children never to ask for handouts.
Cliven and Jane fought about the lunches – one of many disagreements
that eventually led to their divorce. Ryan sided with his dad, and his
playground protest was ultimately a success. After three days, Jane
returned to preparing homemade meals. “My dad fixed the problem and took us off the program,” Ryan, now 43,
recalled. “It was instilled in me that we’re supposed to earn what we
have and not to take from others.” Ryan recounted this early act of civil disobedience during a recent
interview in a windowless 8ft by 8ft room in a high-security county jail
in Portland, Oregon. He wore a pink undershirt, white wristband and
denim blue jail uniform. His latest protest had not gone as planned.
Back in January 2016, Ryan and his 40-year-old brother Ammon had led an army of rightwing activists,
some of them heavily armed “militiamen”, in an occupation of a federal
wildlife center. The standoff, the family’s latest armed confrontation
with the government, cemented the Bundy family’s reputation
as heroes to ultra-conservatives in the west who have long been
critical of federal land-use restrictions – an anti-government movement
that has flourished during Barack Obama’s presidency. But today, Ryan and Ammon, along with their father and two other
Bundy brothers, are isolated in jail cells awaiting federal trials that
could condemn them to spend the rest of their lives in prison...more